In addition to the high legal fees and exposure to potentially hefty
damages payouts that accompany allegations of intellectual property
infringement, such lawsuits can also be dark clouds over defendants,
hampering their ability to do business.

A salient example of this in clean tech is the news that Mainstream Renewable Power (MRP) has ditched Chinese wind turbine maker Sinovel and is looking to alternative turbine suppliers for the 1GW of wind farm projects it has planned in Ireland.

In that litigation AMSC has accused Sinovel of copyright infringement
and theft of trade secrets in connection with allegedly stolen wind
turbine control source code.

This Recharge News piece
notes that an MRP spokesman said the company is "fully aware" of the
legal dispute, and the article attributes the switch by MRP to the
litigation:

MRP's decision is the clearest evidence yet of the
potential damage Sinovel faces in Western markets as a result of its
legal battle with AMSC, which is pursuing the turbine supplier in
several Chinese courts for $1.2bn in compensation and damages over
alleged intellectual property (IP) infringement and unpaid bills.

This is the not the first time allegations of IP infringement have
hurt the business of a wind turbine supplier. Mitsubishi has claimed
that GE's accusations of infringement of several variable speed wind turbine patents virtually shut down its U.S. business.

According to Mitsubishi's court filings (mitsubishi_antitrust_complaint.pdf),
its $2 billion in annual U.S. sales of variable speed wind turbines
dropped to zero after initiation of the first patent infringement suit
by GE in early 2008.